Kerron Clement got a 'poor first impression of London' this morning, thanks to a lost bus driver

The opening of a special 'Olympic Lane' was meant to help athletes and VIPs make the 45-minute journey from Heathrow Airport to Stratford in effortless ease.

Try telling that to US hurdler Kerron Clement, who tweeted his frustration yesterday morning after he was left stranded in traffic for four hours when his bus driver got lost en route to the Olympic Village.

The 26-year-old, who won gold four years ago in Beijing, told his followers: 'Um, so we've been lost on the road for 4hrs. Not a good first impression London.'

The delay was the last thing Clement and his U.S. track and field teammates needed after an overnight transatlantic flight.

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And the 400m hurdler followed his tweet with another, pleading with the driver to find the right route.

He wrote: 'Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please.'

USA
Track and Field confirmed the American athletes were heading to the
Village just to pick up their accreditation before travelling to their
pre-Games training camp in Birmingham.

A LOCOG spokesman refused to comment on the lost driver, but admitted some bus journeys took 'longer than planned'.

Things weren't much better for a busload of Australian athletes and officials after they were taken on a three-hour 'Monopoly tour' of London.

The driver had turned up two hours late, before taking three hours to travel from Heathrow to the Olympic village in East London.

After ackowledging he was lost he admitted the East London Games village had not been entered into the GPS navigation system, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Australian Olympic Committee media liaison officer Damian Kelly, who was with the group of around 30 athletes, medical staff and team officials, said: 'We were moving, we were in the Olympic lane and we were going places, we just weren't going where we were supposed to go.

'He just said it was his first day in that bus and they hadn't told them how the GPSs worked and that he didn't know how to use it and apparently the Olympic Village hadn't been loaded into the GPS.But she said they had taken the extended detour in good humour.

'We saw Buckingham Palace and the Tower Bridge and a few other things, I presume we were supposed to see them anyway but I'm not really sure. Someone on the bus described it as the Monopoly tour.'

London mayor Boris Johnson joked:
'They had the scenic view. They had the chance to see more of our
beautiful scenery than bargained for.'

Games Lane: An official Olympics vehicle (right) uses the first of the
Olympic Route Network (ORN) roads, which came into operation on Monday
on the M4 motorway heading into London from Berkshire

Kerron Clement's frustrated tweets as his bus driver tries to find the Olympic Village

The
organising committee said in a statement: 'It is day one of team
arrivals. We have successfully completed a large number of bus journeys
so far today, from the airport, to the village and the training venues.
Whilst there may have been one or two journeys taking longer than
planned, the vast majority were completed successfully.'

The athletes weren't the only Olympic VIPs who ran into trouble today.

A media shuttle bus also had
difficulty finding its destination. The double decker, travelling from
Russell Square to the Olympic Park in Stratford, pulled over 30 minutes
into its journey.

The driver said: 'Sorry about this'.

He then got out a map, before performing a U-turn and quickly getting back on the correct route.

A record number of visitors were expected to arrive into Heathrow yesterday, as the first batch of athletes arrives for the Games.

Europe's largest airport says athletes from 50 nations will arrive in what it is describing as Britain's biggest peacetime transport challenge.

Some 236,955 passengers are expected to pass through the airport. The previous record of 233,562 was set in July 2011.

Arrivals: Today was the day Olympic athletes began arriving in London. Pictured is Francesca Clapcich of Italy's sailing squad

Arriving home: Members of Team GB arrive at Heathrow from foreign training camps, ready for the start of the Games

Team GB: Most Olympic athletes made it to Olympic Village in one piece, including the Great Britain football squad, led by coach Stuart Pearce and captain Ryan Giggs

Heathrow has enlisted some 1,000
volunteers to meet and greet athletes, officials and media - hoping to
put a bright face on the games. There was also an increased police
presence, including sniffer dogs, along with the volunteers and the
regular Heathrow staff.

People
arriving at Heathrow's Terminal 4 said the immigration lines were not
long. Authorities have stepped up the numbers of immigration officials
to check passports, hoping to avoid the lines that have made headlines
in recent weeks.

The athletes' transport into central London was smoothed by the official opening of a 'Games Lane' along the M4 motorway. The special lane is open only to Olympic officials, VIPs and athletes.

The controversial move to reserve the lane appeared to have paid off as the M4 remained clear throughout Monday morning, largely because drivers chose other routes - fearing the road would be congested.

At a briefing in Westminster today, Transport for London commissioner Peter Hendy insisted arrivals for the Games were 'running smoothly', and expressed surprise about reports an athletes' bus got lost.

He said: 'If the drivers got lost it says nothing about the readiness of the city. I am very surprised to hear it took four hours. They'd be in Southend, never mind Stratford.'

And London mayor Boris Johnson joked: 'If they took four hours then they will have seen far more of the city than they might otherwise have done.'

Volunteers at Heathrow's Olympics Welcome Desk wait for the influx of competitors